Secrets of a Serial Killer by Rosie Walker

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter for this ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a riveting read, with a multi-narrative style, similar to Into the Water by Paula Hawkins. This style can be tricky to navigate, as often in having a variety of perspectives, there’s some compromising on how deep of a sense you can get for any one character in the story. This centered primarily around Helen, an architect working on a redevelopment of an abandoned, derelict psychiatric asylum in Lancaster. Her teenage daughter Zoe goes missing, and there’s a race against the clock to save her before it’s too late.

The atmosphere with the asylum is eerie, but could have been fleshed out further to great effect. There are simultaneous stories here: one is about a historical serial killer who imitates someone to pin their killings on that person, another is about the dark history of a serial killer who lived in the asylum after its closure, yet another is about the dark web and urban explorers investigating local murders. There are even a couple more stories: one is a journalist who is trying to uncover what happened with a string of teenage girls who disappeared, and another is the experience of a young boy whose father has disappeared from his life, and his family is keeping the truth from him about why.

It would have been great to see one or two of these plot lines fleshed out thoroughly rather than so many of them very lightly done. The book was still engrossing, but would have benefited from narrowing down its scope.

You can order it here.

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